Life Inside the MLB Fan Cave

It’s a lazy June afternoon, the game is on, and Mike O’Hara and Ryan Wagner are bickering as usual.

This time it’s about whether or not the Phillies overpaid for Cliff Lee when they signed him to a 5-year mega deal last December, making him the third-richest pitcher in baseball history. Wagner says yes—he’s not quite buying the allure of Lee, who was merely a middling southpaw before discovering his changeup and turning dominant a few years ago—while O’Hara says no, because Lee would have gotten handsomely rewarded anywhere he went. (Granted, he says so with a tinge of jealousy, still bitter that Lee rejected his beloved Yankees in the offseason.)

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Then their conversation shifts to a new topic: Isn’t it great how Pirates manager Clint Hurdle has turned a team of perennial losers into division contenders? (Actually, O’Hara is more fixated on the skipper’s pudgy midsection bulging beneath his uniform—“He ‘aint gonna clear any hurdles that way,” he cracks.)

It’s the same kind of back-and-forth bullshitting you do with your buddies every time you huddle together to watch sports: Wagner is your sarcastic, know-it-all friend who never met a stat he didn’t like, while O’Hara is your goofy Irish frat brother who lives and dies for his team, and curses out the guys on TV every time they make a boneheaded move in the field.

The men are just like any other pair of passionate sports fans—with one big curveball: They aren't just watching today’s slate of ballgames for fun. They’ve been ordered by the MLB to hunker down in a giant bubble and watch every single baseball game this season. That’s at least 2,430 games; 7,290 hours; 21,870 innings; and 65,610 outs from March 31 to September 28. Of course, that’s not counting any postseason games or extra innings—so let’s just say these dudes will have seen enough strikeouts, double plays and dingers to last them a lifetime when that final pitch of the World Series is thrown in October.

Instead of watching today’s game in a basement or at the bar, they’re sprawled out on a couch in front of 15 flat-screen TVs, each showing a different live game. Plus, their digs are a bit more lavish than a corner pub: They’re surrounded by iconic baseball memorabilia, lit-up scoreboards, statues, pennants, pitching alleys, pool tables, DJ booths and jukeboxes—all encompassed in one massive, spacious lower Manhattan fishbowl that the MLB has appropriately dubbed the Fan Cave.

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Wagner and O’Hara were chosen by MLB to spearhead the league’s grand experiment, advertised last winter to baseball fans as the ultimate Dream Job. The two were selected from a pool of thousands not only for their freakish baseball know-how, but also because of their entertainment backgrounds: O’Hara is an actor, comedian, and singer in Celtic punk band The Mighty Regis, while Wagner is fresh off a stint in Broadway’s touring production of The Wizard of Oz. And in their current gig, both spend a lot of the time hamming it up with visiting athletes and celebrities for videos on their website and MLB Network.

So what happens when two guys turn the ultimate hypothetical into a reality? What if you could really watch sports all day long and get paid for it? Sure, the premise is awesome, but if you actually had to log all those hours in front of the boob tube watching groundout after groundout, would it desensitize you to the game of baseball, and possibly to the thrill of sports? Plus, what would it mean for your social life? (“Let’s just say I had a girlfriend before I started this,” Wagner says with a laugh.)

Men’s Health only spent a day in the Fan Cave, but it was enough to experience all of the thrills—walk-off home runs, live TV shoots—and drags—a comatose Mariners/Nationals rubber match—to get a feel for what Wagner and O’Hara go through every day. In between all the action, the cave dwellers gave us their tips for staying sane (and fit) inside the bunker, and discovering hidden nuances of the game to fight off a little pastime fatigue.

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And while you probably won’t find yourself tasked with watching nonstop sports anytime soon, Wagner and O’Hara’s lessons on humility, patience, fitness, and boredom-busting still stick no matter what job you hold.

Break Up the Monotony

Not every game the guys watch can be a marquee match-up like Yanks vs. Sox, so Wagner and O’Hara have had to get creative when middle market teams square off on slow afternoons. “We find players to root for on every team, because having a dog in each fight makes games more exciting,” says O’Hara. So they’ve taken to guys with funny names, like Cubs second baseman Darwin Barney and Tigers pitcher Al Albuquerque. “Now, every time one of those guys comes up to the plate or the mound, we pay extra attention and go crazy when they do something big,” Wagner says.

Stuck in an all-day meeting? Try this tip from Men’s Health office expert Gil Schwartz: If you’re on the verge of slumber, lean into your pad and write, verbatim, a transcript of exactly what is then going on in the room at the point. "Lazenby is scratching his ear," is a good entry, followed by something like, "The key to everything is good flow between work groups." You may then illustrate the notation with a picture of Lazenby, or his ear, or a bunch of arrows showing the ostensible flow between work groups. To the naked eye, you’re being assiduous, but you’re really amusing yourself.

Even though the guys have 15,000 square feet of space to roam around in, they’ve already discovered almost every nook and cranny in the Fan Cave. And sitting around for hours on end as a spectator isn’t exactly conducive to six-pack abs. Still, Wagner and O’Hara have found sneaky ways to stay fit. O’Hara spends the majority of games standing around the televisions with a bat in his hands, trying to mimic each player’s batting stance at the plate. (He does a pretty mean Derek Jeter.) And the two often introduce friendly wagers to keep their muscles sharp. “The Yankees and Orioles were playing a few weeks ago, and since those are our two teams, we did 20 pushups every time the other team scored a run. Unfortunately for us, it was the worst possible game to do it, because they both kept hitting the ball out of the park,” O’Hara says. Adds Wagner: “Our arms were falling off the next day.” Mission accomplished.

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If you can’t get to a gym or the weather’s keeping you from heading outside for a workout, don’t fret. Try the No Gym? No Problem body-weight circuit that you can do anywhere. It will work all of your muscles, and you won’t even have to lift a single weight . . . except your own.

Stay Humble

Some days go by slower than others in the Fan Cave, and not everything always works swimmingly: During our visit, a scheduled live segment for the MLB Network kept getting delayed momentarily, leaving a hungry O’Hara visibly annoyed that he couldn’t chow down on his lunch. But there are kinks to any job, and both men won’t dare take their plum opportunity for granted. “Every time I’m tired or grumpy or uncomfortable, I stop and think for a second and say hey, I’m not outside laying brick—I’m standing in an air-conditioned room watching baseball, meeting my heroes, and talking about it for a living,” says O’Hara. Wagner chimes in: “The fact that we even have jobs at all, let alone amazing ones, makes us doubly blessed. Then it becomes pretty easy to remember how much fun this is.”

Work got you down? Here’s a quick fix: A study in Health Psychology found that healthy young adults with higher levels of hostility had lower lung function. The researchers think that impairment accumulates gradually over the years to take its toll on health. So take a deep breath and count to 10 the next time the copier jams, and you'll breathe easier—and a lot longer.

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